with me bleeding in the bathroom? Howard will love that, his fifth-rate jerkwater backup in jail, charged with stupidity. What were you supposed to do? Follow me. Find out where I went. Get a little information. Report back to Howard, wherever Howard is. Instead here you are, stuck in a toilet with a knife in your hand.' Rafferty comes just inside the door. 'Where's Howard?'
John says, 'Fuck yourself,' and flourishes the knife, doing a gleaming, professional-looking, little back-and- forth razzle-dazzle, but Rafferty ignores it. Either the man will use it or he won't.
'I asked you a question.'
John puts the tip of his tongue to his upper lip and then retracts it. 'And I told you what you can do, if your dick is long enough to stick it up your ass.'
'I also told you to get away from her.'
'Man,' John says, 'you are so not listening.'
Rafferty's got no moves that will protect him from a blade. What he can do, if he can work up the courage, is to offer John another target. He takes a longer look at Pim, who is staring up at him wet-eyed, slumped slightly to the side to try to ease the weight of her damaged left arm. He flips a mental coin, and it comes up heads: John would prefer not to use the knife. So Rafferty grabs a deep breath and brushes past the man as though he's not there, barely bothering to sidestep the knife, and bends down over Pim, practically waving in John's face the freshly bandaged left elbow.
John seizes the advantage, grabs the bandages, and squeezes for all he's worth, with explosive results. Rafferty lets out a bellow of pain, straightens convulsively, and through a sort of red haze he brings his right hand, with the plastic bag in it, up into John's face. When the straw is pointed at the other man's eyes, Rafferty squeezes the bag.
His own cry is still ragged in his throat, but even so he can hear John howl. John yanks his head back, slamming it against the wall of the toilet cubicle and scrubbing at his eyes with his forearm as Rafferty reaches back, lifts his T-shirt, and brings out the heavy soda bottle, clutching it by the neck. With an effort that begins at the soles of his feet, he slams the bottle against the side of John's head, so hard that the bottle almost flies out of his hand. There's a surprising crack, a sound that nearly persuades Rafferty he's broken the man's skull. John's knees accordion outward like he's doing a dance step, and he goes down. Rafferty whacks him again for insurance as he drops, hitting his ear this time. John crumples on the floor like a loose sack, looking as though he has no muscles in his body.
Rafferty stands over him, panting, making sure the man is out. From beneath John's head, blood begins to pool across the tile floor. The women standing in the doorway break into applause.
Taking it one deliberate step at a time, Rafferty puts the bottle down carefully, not spilling the remaining soda, and kneels beside John. He pries the knife from the man's hand, tosses the blade against the opposite wall, and puts a couple of fingers over John's pulse, which is reassuringly strong and steady. As if on cue, the man moans, and Pim lets out a squeak of terror and scrabbles away from him, using her good arm to pull her along.
'I need a belt,' Rafferty says in Thai to the women in the doorway. They're pushing at each other now, peering in at the flattened man and the injured girl. A woman in front, older and tattooed and somehow familiar, unbuckles her belt, slips it free of her jeans, and throws it to him.
She says, in English, 'Here, Poke,' and Rafferty takes his eyes off the belt to look at her, and it falls at his feet, the heavy buckle making an echoing clank as it hits the tile.
'Move,' Rafferty says to Pim, and when she's scooted farther away, he rolls John over onto his stomach, yanks his arms behind his back, and makes a tight figure eight with the belt, wrapping it around and between the arms just above the elbows, Khmer Rouge style, where John won't be able to reach it with his hands. When he's tugged it as tight as he can, he secures the buckle and takes a quick look at John's scalp. The bottle broke the skin, but there doesn't seem to be any real damage, just the usual aggressive bleeding from a scalp wound. He rolls John onto his back again.
'Hold still,' he says to Pim. He puts his hand on her left shoulder and probes it gently. She lets out a shrill yelp. 'Dislocated,' he says. 'Stay where you are.'
Pim says, around a sniffle, 'But-'
'Do what I say. If you move around, it'll hurt more.' He turns to the woman who threw him the belt. He's suddenly immensely weary. 'I'm sorry. I know you, but I can't remember your name.'
'Lan,' she says. 'I dance King's Castle long time. Before, me friend for Rose.'
'Right, right. Sorry, Lan. Where's security? They should be here by now.'
'You want?'
'No, I don't. If they come, try to keep them out, okay?'
'Okay. Him.' She points her foot at John, a gesture of contempt. 'Him boxing her. Bang, take her hair, pull her.'
'Well, he's not going to enjoy the next few minutes.' John moans again, and Rafferty gets up, turns on the water in the sink, cups his hands beneath the spout, and throws the water at John. He does it three or four times, and then John's eyes are open. He struggles once against the belt, takes a quick look around the bathroom-at Rafferty, at the huddled Pim, at the band of angry women. His eyes find the knife on the other side of the room, and he goes still. He's not even looking at Rafferty.
'What's your full name?' Rafferty asks, kneeling beside him again.
'Fuck you,' John says. He's looking past Rafferty at the wall.
Rafferty picks up the soda bottle, which feels like it weighs ten pounds. 'If I hit you in exactly the same place, it's going to get your attention.' He wiggles the bottle by its neck.
John closes his eyes and slowly opens them again. 'Bohnert. John Bohnert.'
'Spell it.'
'B-o-h-n-e-r-t.'
'What did you think you were doing today? When I saw you on Sukhumvit.'
'Looking for a library. I'm a big reader.'
'Who else was following us?'
The question provokes a surprised contraction of Bohnert's eyebrows, quickly smoothed away. Then he shakes his head.
'Was somebody else following Rose?'
Bohnert squirms for a moment, testing the strength of the belt, and Rafferty puts an open hand on the man's throat and presses down, hard. 'Stay put and I'll let you breathe. I asked whether anyone was following Rose.'
Rafferty lifts his hand, and Bohnert coughs. 'Who's Rose?'
'Be like that,' Rafferty says. 'But listen. You're going to tell me what I want to know, and you really ought to do it the easy way. So I can feel good about myself when this is over.'
'Have I said 'fuck you' yet?'
'Well, it's a good thing my self-esteem is solid,' Rafferty says. 'Otherwise I might regret doing this.'
He picks up the bottle of soda and holds it to the light, checking the level. Still about two-thirds full. John winces at the sight of it and draws his head away, but Rafferty pops the cap with his thumb, puts the bottle down again, and pulls the straw out of the bag of chili sauce.
There's a murmur among the women gathered at the door. Three or four of them are whispering to others.
'You know this one, do you?' he asks them. Even Pim is watching now, although she looks puzzled. She hasn't been here long enough to learn the trick, which owes its existence to the limitless imagination and limited resources of the Thai police.
'A friend of mine who's a cop told me about this. It's not a complicated recipe,' Rafferty says to Bohnert, who's working on looking impassive, his eyes once again on the wall. 'The trick is to get the proportions right. Also, it works better if you can grind the chilies to a paste, but this is an improvisation.'
He gathers the open end of the bag of chili sauce into a tight bunch and works it into the neck of the soda bottle. Then he upends the bag and squeezes on it again so the nam pla prik flows into the soda water, turning it the color of weak tea with lots of little red and green bits floating in it. To Bohnert he says, 'You following this?'
Bohnert says nothing.
'One more chance,' Rafferty says, hoping the man will cooperate. He's seeing little bright flashes at the
